At ten o’clock they passed round the great crater of the Premier Diamond Mine and by eleven-thirty were taking in a fresh supply of petrol at Witbank, where the black dumps from the coal mines gave the place the gloomy appearance of some small Welsh mining town.
They were still in the heart of the high veldt, many thousands of feet above sea level, so the scenery continued to be monotonous and uninteresting. Long sweeps of rolling grass, mealie patches, or Kaffir corn were only enlivened now and again by a few lonely native rondavels and square mud huts, or occasionally a solitary tin-roofed farmhouse.
Skidding, jolting, and bumping in an alarming fashion, the car raced on, passing over a little patch of good road at Middelburg to fresh ruts, sometimes half a foot deep, on the far side of the town. At one-thirty they pulled up at the Transvaal Hotel in Belfast for lunch.
By two o’clock they were on their way again, making good going over slightly better roads, which wound now through hilly country. Sandy had hardly spoken during their five-hour journey, so oppressed was he by the thought of Sarie somewhere to the north-eastward down on the low veldt-hidden perhaps in some obscure shack at the mercy of Philbeach and his crew—but now he turned to Michael.
‘In a few moments we’ll be in Machadodorp.’
‘What sort of a place is it?’ asked Michael mechanically.
‘It was the last headquarters of the Republican Government in the Anglo-Boer War. Oom Paul Kruger lived there for some time with his staff in a train on the railway siding. It was there that the famous Kruger sovereigns were struck in a primitive mint from the gold secured by the Boers from the mines on the Rand. A large quantity of it, which is supposed to amount to several million, has never been properly accounted for and it is said that it was secretly buried somewhere round here to prevent it falling into the hands of the British, before Kruger finally sought refuge over the Portuguese Frontier.’
‘There is good trout-fishing in the mountain streams round here, too,’ Cornelius added, ‘and a hydro with radio-active thermal springs, so the place has become quite a popular holiday resort in recent years.’
Michael smiled at them appreciatively, realising that they were doing their best to ease the strain.
Five minutes later they were running through the main street of the small town, when a policeman suddenly stepped off the side-walk outside the Eastern Hotel and held up his hand for them to halt.
They were not speeding at the time, so it was with a sharp feeling of apprehension that Sandy brought the car to a standstill a few yards from the man. Next moment his worst fears were realised. The officer turned and bellowed: ‘Here they are,’ and Captain Moorries came out from the porch of the hotel.
He rubbed his long nose for a second and looked at Sandy with a half-suppressed grin. ‘Made a pretty quick lunch back therein Belfast, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Sandy briefly. ‘What about it?’
‘Only that we’ve had hell trying to catch you up all morning and it was the first chance we had to pass you. You’re a pretty useful driver, I will say.’
‘Catch us up?’ Sandy echoed, feigning surprise, but with a sick realisation that his bluffing was useless. ‘Why did you want to do that and what are you doing in this part of the world, anyhow?’
‘Poor chap!’ The Captain’s grin broadened. ‘You can’t even guess, eh? Well, I’ll dot the “i’s” and cross the “t’s”! You didn’t think I was quite so slow as to let you get clear away like this—did you? It wasn’t much trouble to follow you up to Johannesburg and sit on your tail until you thought you’d have a cut at running those diamonds out of the Union over the Portuguese border. Pull that car into the side of the road. Come on, now! I’m going to search the lot of you.’
27
The Road to Portuguese East
Michael’s heart was pounding in his chest. This, then, was the end of the adventure. He had the diamonds round his body in a neat canvas belt that Patricia had made for him, and it was far too bulky for him to have any hope of concealing it. The police would take it from him now, and the lot of them would be escorted back to Johannesburg under arrest, while God only knew what awful fate would overtake Patricia and Sarie. Cornelius’s words about Philbeach’s threat to mutilate the girls had been ringing in his ears all the morning. While they had raced and bumped along those awful rutted tracks he had constantly forced his thoughts away from a picture he had once seen of a woman who had had her nose slit by Chinese bandits when her friends had failed to ransom her. If he had had his pistol handy the chances are that he would have shot the Captain in a desperate attempt to escape and ended his days on a South African scaffold, rather than leave Patricia to be the victim of Philbeach’s horrible threat. He half rose but was suddenly jerked backwards into his seat; Sandy had been visualising his Sarie undergoing similar horrors and, with a quick resolve not to surrender without a struggle, he slipped in his clutch and the car shot forward.
The policeman, who was standing by the near front wheel, leapt backwards. Captain Moorries yelled something after them which they did not hear, and the next moment they were racing out of the town down into the dip, past the thermal springs, and up the other rise.
Cornelius leant over and bellowed in Sandy’s ear: ‘They’ve got a car, so they’ll be after us in a moment. Our only chance is to take by-roads.’
‘Is there one soon?’ Sandy shouted back.
‘Yes—I know this country well—you’d better let me drive.’
‘Right.’ Sandy brought the car to a stop on a level stretch and less than half a minute was occupied in changing seats. Then the car leapt forward again.
Two miles further on, Cornelius took the right-hand turn at a fork, and in a few moments their dust-cloud was hidden by the winding road and rocky hillsides from the police car which they felt certain must now be following.
The track which they had taken was worse, if possible, than the so-called main road. Every mile or so they came to a sudden steep gully which cut across it—the dry beds of narrow streams which would be filled with water in the rainy season. Each time they crossed one the car bumped with such violence that Michael feared the springs would break, although Cornelius slowed down to ten miles an hour whenever he saw one ahead and yelled a warning to Ernest and Sandy in the back. The latter was clinging desperately to the side of the car, but was constantly jerked bodily six inches from his seat.
Their speed was necessarily much reduced by this difficult driving, but they had at least the satisfaction of knowing that the police car could not be gaining ground upon them even if its occupants had spotted their tyre marks in the dust where they had left the main road. But Cornelius was hoping that Captain Moorries believed them to have taken the road towards Barberton—which was the highway to the frontier, or else going round by Schoemans Kloof and Nelspruit.
Half-an-hour after he had taken the wheel they passed the little village of Waterval Boven and flashed into a tunnel through which the road disappeared into a solid mass of mountainous rock.
The roar of the engine reverberated like thunder and the lights of the car showed ghostly on the rocky walls as they wound through the pitchy darkness of the curving tunnel until they sped out into sudden daylight at the further end.
‘Coo!’ exclaimed Ernest, wriggling his neck above the open collar of his shirt. ‘We’d have been properly for it if we’d met anything coming the other way in there.’
No one replied to him, for the others were all too busy wondering if they had thrown the police off their trail but, even in that desperate situation, Michael could not help marvelling at the amazing panorama which was now spread before them.
As the car came out of the heat of the mountain he saw that the road wound away for miles in the distance, curving in and out on the hillside like the Corniche above the Mediterranean. The same sheer wall of rock rose on one side but instead of a blue sea upon the other there was a steep valley overhung by great rocky krantzes, at the bottom of which—par
allel with the winding road—rushed the white waters of a foaming river.
The way shelved steeply as it curved round the rocky bends, and for mile after mile the car raced on down a seemingly endless slope until, in the short space of twenty miles, they had dropped no less than four thousand feet.
It had been sufficiently warm for them to remove their coats during the morning when they were running through the grassy uplands, but now in this low veldt it was stiflingly hot, so that even the breeze made by the passage of the car failed to cool them. The scenery was very different from that which they had passed earlier in the day. Great patches of cactus, aloes, and centry-plant lined the road, and for the first time Michael and Ernest saw something of the real African bush. Low, straggling, flat-topped thorn trees mixed with a dozen species of acacia and wattle, hemmed them in on every side and occasionally they passed a weird-looking tree which Sandy said was called Euphobia. It had a smooth, round trunk, from the top of which masses of prickly arms stretched up, giving it the appearance of a gigantic cactus on one leg.
At times the track almost disappeared in patches of giant grass standing ten or twelve feet high, which rustled on the coachwork as the car forced its way between them. Every now and again they had to duck their heads in order to avoid the branches of some tree which hung low over the track, and the infuriating runnels which crossed the road became more frequent, many of them now, on this low level, having a foot or more of rushing water flowing through them.
At half-past four they bumped their way to a halt outside a native trading station near Elandshoek, as Cornelius was now a little uncertain of his way and felt it best to inquire there before going any farther. The English owner of the store received them most hospitably and offered to take them up to his house behind the store to give them tea, but they dared not linger, and after he had given them full directions they pushed on immediately.
For another half-hour they jolted and bumped along by ways that curved in and out through patches of thorny shrub and dense grass, above which myriads of butterflies hovered. Twice they crossed a bend in the Crocodile river, then at last they regained the main road, which twisted now like a snake in and out of the sweltering, oppressive valleys. They passed Nelspruit and, rising to the higher ground again, at last pulled up outside the hotel at White River.
It was a pleasant, one-storied building. Several groups of smart-looking people in semi-tropical kit sat drinking at little tables in the long stone stoep which overlooked a semicircular drive where a number of cars were parked.
Michael and Ernest were astonished to find so civilised a hostelry out here in the wilds after their experience of the little inns at Postmasburg and Zwart Modder, but, Philbeach not having put in an appearance, Cornelius explained the reason while they sat down to a round of badly-needed drinks.
‘This is the jumping-off place for the Kruger Park,’ he said, ‘so lots of wealthy people come up here to stay while they see our national beauty spot.’
‘Park, eh?’ Ernest raised his eyebrows. ‘Seems a queer kettle of fish to have a park out here to me. Plenty of open spaces without going to that expense.’
‘Oh, it’s not the sort of park that you’re thinking of.’ Cornelius laughed for the first time that day. ‘It is the great game reserve, and there are eight thousand square miles of it. You could motor through it for a week without ever passing over the same track twice. It is bigger than the whole of Wales, you know.’
‘Go on!’ Ernest gasped. ‘That’s a park-and-a-half, and no mistake. What sort of game have they got in it?’
‘Everything—lion, leopard, hippo, giraffe, wildebeeste, zebra, impala, baboon, sable, eland, kudu, and most of the other animals that went into the Ark.’
‘It must cost them a pretty penny in iron bars,’ remarked Ernest thoughtfully, ‘if this place is the size you say.’
There aren’t any. The animals live in their natural state and the lions make their kill each night. You see them standing right in the roadway sometimes when you’re passing through it slowly in a car.’
‘Lumme! I’d be scared to motor through a place like that.’
Cornelius smiled. ‘They would never attack you unless you were fool enough to leave your car. They don’t take any notice of strangers now because they’ve learnt that in this great area nobody is ever allowed to shoot them.’
Ernest nodded. ‘I see. But eight thousand miles is a pretty fat chunk of country. I would like to have had the contract to do the fencing.’
‘It’s not fenced. They only have toll gates on the roads into it to collect a guinea a car from people who want to go in.’
‘Well, you do surprise me. What happens if the wild beasts break out?’
‘They do at times. Just like human beings, they’re fond of a change of diet, so, when the lions get tired of antelope and buck, they come down from the reserve on the look-out for an ox or a nigger, and sometimes half-a-dozen of them will roam a district outside it for two or three weeks until they’re shot.’
Sandy glanced at his wrist-watch. ‘I wonder what has happened to Philbeach? It’s just on six.’
‘Yes,’ Michael nodded, and sank his voice to a whisper, ‘we should look pretty silly if the police have been following us and they drove up and caught us sitting here.’
‘Oh, there’s no fear of that,’ Sandy assured him. ‘This place is virtually a dead-end which leads nowhere. We left the main road at Nelspruit, so I think we can fairly safely say that we have thrown them off the track.’
As he finished speaking, a large, closed car drove up, with Philbeach sitting in the driver’s seat. He caught sight of them at once and beckoned for them to come down to him in the drive, so Sandy paid the white-coated Malay waiter for their drinks and the group walked down the steps towards him.
‘Have you got them?’ he shot gruffly at Michael.
‘Yes.’
‘All right, but it’s wisest not to hand them over here. Jump in the car and we’ll move off a quarter of a mile down the road.’
‘Just as you wish,’ Michael answered, climbing into the seat beside him.
Sandy pulled open the door at the back, upon which Philbeach threw over his shoulder: ‘You coming too?’
‘Yes—have you any objection?’
‘No, I don’t give a cuss. You’re too scared about what might happen to your women to try and do me any harm. So you can all come, if you like.’
The others followed Sandy into the back of the car and then Philbeach drove the party half a mile down the slope, until they halted on the edge of one of the great citrus plantations which thrive all round the district.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘Come on, hand them over.’
But Michael shook his head. ‘Nothing doing. We want the girls first.’
‘Don’t worry your head about that, little Galahad,’ Philbeach said, with a touch of sarcasm in his voice. ‘You stay here at White River and the two love birds shall be delivered back to you safe and sound by this time to-morrow night.’
‘That’s no good,’ Sandy cut in. ‘You’re not getting a single pebble of those lines. You’ve got to take us to the girls or else bring them here; then we’ll hand over the stones to you—but not before.’
‘Likely, isn’t it?’ Philbeach sneered. ‘Then, when I’ve got the diamonds you’d call in the police before I was a hundred yards away: Have me pinched for running them, and charge me with kidnapping into the bargain, probably. You’ve got to hand the stuff over now. If you don’t I’ll leave you here, and follow a fine old Chinese custom of sending you two nice little pink ears in a box by post to-morrow morning.’
‘You swine!’ Michael half-rose from his seat but Cornelius grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him back.
‘Look here!’ he said. ‘It’s obvious that we don’t trust each other, but we’ve got to fix this business some way, and we’re not giving up the stones unless we get the girls. We haven’t got the police with us now and if we follow you in our car w
e shall have no chance of getting in touch with them, so why not lead us to the place where you’ve got them hidden and we’ll make the exchange there.’
Philbeach considered for a moment, then he nodded. ‘Yes, I don’t see any objection to that. You’ve not to come armed, though. I’m not taking any chance on you holding me up.’
‘We couldn’t carry a gun in this kit without you seeing it—could we?’ Sandy said sarcastically. ‘But what about you?’
Philbeach’s small eyes flashed over the shirts and breeches of the party. ‘No, that’s true—and I haven’t got one. You can search me if you like.’
Cornelius took him at his word and patted him over but he was not carrying a weapon. ‘Better drive back to the hotel for us to pick up our bus then,’ he said, when he had done.
Ten minutes later the two cars were on the road again, heading back to Nelspruit. Yet for a long time they hardly seemed to increase their distance from the rugged outline of the Logogotu mountain, which, like a vast crouching lion, dominates the whole White River district for many miles around.
Outside Nelspruit, Philbeach pulled up and told the others that they must follow closely because he meant to take a crosscountry track through the bush to Kaapmuiden which would save them going all the way round by Barberton. They entered another wild area of the low veldt, and experienced again the violent jolting in crossing the gullies which seemed to occur with even greater frequency than in the early afternoon. The scenery round them was wooded and mountainous. Here and there a lonely farmstead or plantation was to be seen far below them in a fertile valley but in the next hour they passed another vehicle and only half a dozen niggers plodding along the dusty road.
By nine o’clock Sandy began to wonder if Philbeach had managed to take the girls over the Portuguese border, for they were now nearing the town of Komati Poort, but just outside it Philbeach left the main road again for another track. It sloped downhill at first through tangled, wooded country and then wound in and out along the west bank of the broad Komati river. The sun had set and the evening light made the scene of rock-strewn waters and wild bushland dim about them. After a couple of miles the track ended at a tumble-down shack which looked out on a bend in the river, and, driving up to within ten yards of it, Philbeach stopped his car and got out. The others followed suit and walked over to him.
The Fabulous Valley Page 24